‘We recognize the critical need to transform engineering talent into business leadership, in a globalized world,’ Vineet Nayyar, executive vice-chairman of Tech Mahindra, said in a statement.

Hyderabad/New Delhi: Mahindra Group, which has businesses ranging from automobiles to aerospace, on Friday entered the higher education sector by setting up an engineering institution in Hyderabad in collaboration with France’s leading technical education provider Ecole Centrale Paris.

Called the Mahindra Ecole Centrale, the engineering institution will be run by Mahindra Educational Institutions, a 100% subsidiary of the group’s information technology arm, Tech Mahindra Ltd. The campus is located in Hyderabad.

“We recognize the critical need to transform engineering talent into business leadership, in a globalized world,” Vineet Nayyar, executive vice-chairman of Tech Mahindra, said in a statement.

Mahindra Ecole Centrale will focus on seven thrust areas: energy, environment, communications, infrastructure, transportation, materials and defence. Its faculty will be drawn from India and abroad. Mahindra Ecole Centrale campus was inaugurated by Andhra Pradesh governor E.S.L. Narasimhan on Friday. With this another IT major has now entered higher education space. HCL Technology founder Shiv Nadar has already started his university in Greater Noida through its non-profit arm Shiv Nadar foundation and Azim Premji Foundation has established a university in Karnataka. Premzi is also the chairman of Wipro Ltd.

While Ecole Centrale of Paris will provide academic hand-holding, the degrees will be provided by Hyderabad-based Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), said Sanjay Dhande, the founding director of the institute. Dhande, the former director at IIT-Kanpur said that the institute will offer a five-year dual degree to start with.

“As part of the dual-degree—while the B-Tech degree will be given in pure engineering streams like mechanical and civil, the M. Tech will be multi-disciplinary and the degree could be in areas like energy studies,” said Dhande.

Though he did not divulge the exact investment figure, the founding director said that the amount must not be less than Rs. 500 crore looking at the quality of infrastructure that Tech Mahindra has put in place.

“The entire infrastructure is ready with space for research and lab work. It’s the same campus where Satyam computer Services had some software facility before Tech Mahindra acquired Satyam” Dhande said. It will be a residential campus.

Ecole Centrale is one of the France’s oldest engineering schools, set up in 1829, and is considered a prestigious academic institute with ties to top universities such as Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California Berkeley, Oxford University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.